


Forget Me Not

by orphan_account



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Mystery, Original Characters - Freeform, So much angst, Some Swearing, eddie brock investigates, happy ending I promise, where is venom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-24 08:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16636160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eddie's memories of Venom have been stolen and his symbiote is gone, but a new friend might just be able to help.





	1. Chapter 1

He was on the floor. Why was he on the floor? Eddie sat up and looked around his apartment. Everything seemed normal in the daylight, nothing out of place, but something was missing. His head felt fuzzy and his mouth tasted odd. Had he been drinking?

He waited, almost as though he was expecting an answer, but none came.

He pulled himself up onto the couch. Why did it feel like he was forgetting something important? Was the stove on? He looked over. It wasn't. Did he lock the front door? Seeing as he was inside his apartment, that didn't seem necessary.

He looked down, flexing his fingers. Were his nails always this blunt? Why would they be sharp?

Again, he waited, expecting some sort of response, or for something to change, but nothing did.

He let out a long breath.

_"Okay, think Eddie. What do you last remember?"_

Suddenly his head was a riot of noise and colour, like too many videos tabs open at once, all playing over each other.

He fell forward and grabbed his head, willing the cacophony to stop. It did and he was left breathing heavily in the quiet of his flat once more.

"That was... well, that was not good," he said out loud to no one.

The date, he should check the date. He felt in his pockets for his phone, but there was nothing. Not on the coffee table either. He got up and searched the kitchen, then the bedroom, finding it on his nightstand. The screen was cracked. He didn't remember doing that.

A fragment of a memory - the high pitch shatter as his phone hit a concrete floor.

But that was all it was. A fragment with no context. He brushed it aside for the time being and tried to get the phone turned on. Nothing.

"Battery must be dead."

He fished around for the charger and hooked it up. He sat on the edge of the bed while he waited for the screen to come to life. Now he knew he was forgetting something. It was all just so quiet. He closed his eyes.

"Okay Eddie, just think back. When was the last time you left the house?" He didn't know why he was speaking out loud. Had he always talked to himself this much?

He tried to think of a specific memory, of leaving his apartment and locking the door, but he did that so often it was meaningless.

"Okay, something more specific. The last time you, you..." His mind was blank.

Just then his phone pinged catching his attention. It had powered up enough to come back to life and there were several messages from someone called 'Elle'. Did he know an Elle? He scrolled through the texts. They all seemed pretty concerned. Maybe he should reply?

His stomach grumbled. When was the last time he ate something?

He left the phone and went to the kitchen, opening up the fridge.

"Okay then bud, what'd you fancy?"

Why did he say that? Who was he saying it to? Himself?

Eddie shook his head and reached into the freezer. Tater tots. That seemed easy.

He froze. That feeling of forgetting something came back with overwhelming force.

Darkness. Strength. The scent of blood. A deep, guttural growl that wasn't human or animal. A singing in his bones.  A warmth around his neck. The caress on the back of his hand. Aching, missing, wanting, empty.

Eddie fell to his knees. It felt like a gaping chasm had opened up in his chest. Something was supposed to be there, but that something was gone. He wanted to remember, so badly to remember what it was, but that barrage of noise and colour returned, drowning out the world.

Memory.exe is corrupted. The system will shut down now.

______

He was on the floor.

Why was he on the floor?

There was a cold chill coming from behind him. The fridge door was open. He got up and closed it and tried to piece together what was going on. It was horrible sense of de ja vu and something was missing.

But before he could linger on it, there was a loud banging on his door. With some trepidation, he opened it.

A woman was standing there, someone he didn't know. Her dark hair was clipped back, her clothes were casual and she carried a messenger bag over her right shoulder. She seemed like a similar age to himself, but it was hard to tell. Her faced looked relived to see him.

"Oh Eddie, thank god you're alright! You weren't answering your phone." Her accent was British.

"Yeah, the, uh, the battery died."

Something in the way he answered made her expression change to one of concern. She looked at him more intensely.

"Are _you_ okay though?"

"Yeah. I- I'm fine."

"I?" She came closer.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think." His reply clearly didn't alleviate her worry.

She took a quick glance down the hallway then pushed Eddie into his apartment, closing the door behind her.

"Hey!" Eddie protested. She was pulling the bolt across.

"Just answer me one very important question," she turned to face him. "Where is V?"

"What?"

"V. Venom. Where is Venom?"

"Who?"

"Ven-om," she sounded out the syllables like he was slow. "Are they not with you?"

What a bizarrely phrased question.

"Listen lady, I don't know who you are, or what you're going on about, but I think you should leave." He pointed towards the door.

Her eyes opened wider in a small realisation of horror. Her hands covered her mouth.

" _Fuck_ ," she breathed out. "Fuck, fuck, cocking, wanking, fuck!" She paced about, angrily grabbing her hair. "She got to you, didn't she? I _knew_ I shouldn't have let you go in on your own. I fucking _knew_ it."

She stopped, her mind racing through the possibilities while her eyes stared into space.

"Look," Eddie piped up, "I don't know what-"

She suddenly turned to him.

"She stole something from you, something very precious, something that she is _not_ allowed to keep."

"Who!?" Eddie cried out in frustration.

"Carolyn Archer!" she replied.

It was like a bomb had been set off in Eddie's mind. So much noise, too many images. He stumbled backwards, his hands grasping at his head, his eyes screwed tightly shut as if that would stop him seeing things. Then suddenly there was pain. Sharp pain. It was on his arm. Was someone pinching him?

Just like that, his head cleared.

"Ow. Ow!" Eddie yelled. He looked to see her, the mystery woman, let go of where she had been squeezing the skin on his arm. There were nail marks. "What'd you do that for!?"

"To stop your brain from crashing and ending up like all the other victims." She went over to the table and put her bag down on it.

"What other victims?"

"The 26 people whose brain crashed just like yours was trying to do." She dejectedly sat at the table.

"So you pinched me?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

Eddie had to admit that it did. He idly rubbed his arm. The marks were already fading. He didn't know this woman, but she seemed to know something about what was going on. Seemed to know about his condition, and maybe she knew what was missing. It kept on coming back to what he was missing.

"She made you forget, Eddie. Made you forget about her, clearly made you forget about me, but worst of all, she made you forget about Venom. And that's just not going to stand."

There was an edge of anger in her voice. The kind of anger someone gets when an injustice has been carried out. He knew that anger well. His instincts, which were usually right about these things, told him that whatever had happened, she was on his side. And right now, that was enough.

He came over and sat across from her, meeting her gaze. It was full of steely determination.

"So, what are you going to do?" he asked.

" _We_ ," she corrected him, "are going to get them back. Then we're going to make _her_ pay for it."

 


	2. Chapter 2

"We should probably go back to my place. My set-up there is better equipped to handle, well, anything." She got out her phone but didn't touch the screen.

"Um, sure. Quick question though - what is your name?"

She let out an amused sigh. "Oh right. It's Eleanor - Elle really."

"Elle," repeated Eddie. "I have messages from you." He got up and went into the bedroom. His phone had barely charged, but he flicked through the texts anyway. Past the recent concerned ones, there were quite a few more in the conversation history. He compared the dates of the first one to the current one on his phone.

"Six weeks! I've lost six weeks!?"

"At least that, yeah," Elle replied from his doorway.

Eddie opened up his calendar and scrolled back up before a month and a half. He had a meeting with his editor. He remembered that. And a coffee date with Anne. Yeah, he remembered that too. She had been wearing blue that day. It looked good on her. But as soon as he tried to think about anything more recent he could feel the confusion coming back. He quickly pinched his left hand to bring him back to the present.

"You said there were other victims?" Eddie asked.

"Yeah. Your doctor friend - Dan, I think? - told you about them. Wanted you to investigate."

"That sounds like Dan."

Elle shifted in the doorway, looking at her phone. "I can tell you more about it when we get to mine. Hopefully I can do it without triggering another crash."

"Yeah, that would be good." Eddie's stomach let out a loud gurgle.

"When was the last time you ate?" She asked.

"I literally have no idea."

 

 

They left the apartment shortly after. An Uber was waiting for them on the street even though Eddie didn't recall seeing Elle order one. He shrugged it off. It wasn't like his powers of recollection were to be trusted right now.

"Hi, I'm Andrew, I'll be your driver today," came a bright, young voice from the front of the car.

"Hi Andrew," Elle replied. "If you get us there quickly and don't say a word along the way, I will give you five stars and a good review. Understand?" Andrew nodded and waited for them to put on their seatbelts before pulling out into the street.

The drive was quiet. Elle spent the ride focused on her phone which seemed to be doing things without her input. It was odd but Eddie was distracted by that empty feeling again. Maybe the thing he was missing was this Venom person? What kind of name was Venom anyway? And why did his chest hurt at the thought of them? His lungs felt heavy. If he didn't know better he would compare it to the aftermath of Anne breaking off their engagement, except without the overwhelming guilt. It was so bizarre to have your body remember someone and your brain not.

Something touched his arm and he flinched. But nothing was there. Had it been the sense memory of a hand? A finger? An inky black tendril making comforting motions against his skin?

What the hell!? Where had that last thought come from?

"We've reached your destination." Andrew said and immediately covered his mouth with his hand. "Sorry."

"No worries Andrew," Elle said, unbuckling her seatbelt. "See, five stars already." She held up her phone for him to see and he smiled.

"Thank you, and please-"

"Ah, ah, "Elle cut him off."Don't ruin it Andrew." He gave her a thumbs up instead.

Elle's apartment block was much nicer than Eddies, though really it wouldn't take much to achieve that. They took the lift up the fourth floor and when they got to her door Eddie couldn't help but notice that there didn't seem to be a door handle.

She placed her hand against the door and something unbolted from the inside.

"Welcome to my humble abode," she said as she went inside.

If Eddie didn't know what she did before, he had a pretty good idea now. The space, as it turns out, wasn't much bigger than his, but it was a lot more crowded. Where he had his TV and couch she had a desk and wall full of large monitors. The air buzzed with electronics and the air conditioning needed to keep everything running at an optimal temperature. He shivered.

"I don't want to make stereotypical accusations here, but any chance that you're hacker?" Eddie asked.

"Gold star for Eddie Brock," she replied, waving a hand over the desk and bringing all of the monitors back to life. Eddie couldn't even being to figure out what some of them were showing and didn't bother to try. "A bit nicer than slowly stewing in your own filth in your mother's basement, eh?" She smiled as she passed him, closing the front door.

Eddie nodded but didn't get the joke, if there was one.

"Please, have a seat." She gestured towards an armchair against the wall to the left of the desk. She sat down in one of those ergonomic office chairs and put her phone on the table. Already she was distracted by something one of the screens was showing. She rested her fingers on the solitary keyboard on the desk and the display on the monitor changed.

"I'll deal with you later," she murmured."Sorry," she turned back to Eddie who was making himself comfortable in the arm chair. "This has probably been something of a day for you."

"You could say."

"Where to start?" she sighed. "You came to me because you needed help. Your doctor friend had told you about several comatose patients that medical science couldn't figure out."

She noticed a fluttering in Eddie's eyes.

"No, don't try to remember, just- just listen, okay?" Eddie let out a breath and nodded. She continued, "Dan knew they were somehow all connected. They all had the same symptoms; a strange bruising in their brains. You dug a little deeper and found a therapy centre, but there wasn't any concrete evidence. You needed patient records and other stuff that wasn't readily available."

"What kind of methods they were using," Eddie added.

"Precisely. Drugs seemed to be the obvious answer, but just didn't seem to fit. Course, if we knew then what we know now, we wouldn't have spent so much time barking up that wrong tree." She turned back to face the monitors. "Hopefully my back door is still working."

She placed a hand on her keyboard and all the screens changed to show what looked like dozens of security camera feeds. Eddie got up to get a closer look.

"Is this...?"

"Inside the facility, yeah. Let me scroll back to last night." The screens became a whir of motion as they rewound. Eddie was transfixed. They both fell into silence.

"I'm sorry Eddie."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I should have been watching you last night. I got distracted and didn't think to check until this morning."She hung her head, her voice quiet and pained.

"Hey, it's okay." He touched her shoulder. "You weren't to know."

"But I should have." He back straightened. "The fucking bitch. I'm going to rip her fucking head off."

Now why did that feel like a familiar idea? Maybe even an exciting one? Shit Eddie, how did your brain get so messed up?

"Oh, there you are."

She wasn't even looking at the screen. How did she know? She pointed to one of the monitors in the middle.

"Um..." Eddie wasn't sure which one he was supposed to be looking at. Everything was so small.

The feed in question got bigger. There he was, sneaking in through a fire escape in what looked like a janitor's uniform and cap. Elle let out an amused huff.

"You didn't even think to bring a mop and bucket? So conspicuous."

Somehow, the camera feed followed him as he moved through the building. Elle must've been controlling it but her hands weren't moving.

"How _are_ you doing that?"

"Doing what?" She answered, distracted by what was on the screens. "Oh shit."

"What? What did I miss?" The footage rewound. Eddie was now in a part of the building that was clearly meant for the public. It looked very fancy and spa-like. He watched himself place his hand over the lock of a door. It opened and he went inside.

"Wait, wait. Go back," Eddie said.

"What?"

"Just, go back. Only a little bit," Eddie asked. She complied and he watched himself open the door without a lock-pick, but there was something. A little black something between his hand and the wall. "There!" He pointed on the monitor discolouring it momentarily. "Go back again. Can you do frame by frame?"

"Of course, but I don't see-"

"Please," said Eddie. This felt important.

She went through it frame by frame and there it was. A tiny black tendril coming from his palm, but quickly retreating back into it.

"There. What the hell is _that_!?"

She looked like she wanted to answer, but changed her mind. "Eddie, you should be more concerned about _whose_ office you just went into."

"Why?" Elle was deflecting, he could tell.

"That's Caro- that's _her_ office."

"So? It was, what," he glanced at the timestamp, "11pm? She was probably long gone. Check the security footage." He expected the angle to change, but it didn't.

"I can't. Her office _doesn't have_ any cameras."

"Oh. That's probably why I went in there in the first place."

"Yeah, and you didn't come back out for, oh, let's see..." The footage sped up. The timestamp just kept on climbing. Finally, he emerged. "An hour. You went off-camera for an hour!"

This did not feel good. And he didn't look it on screen either. His movements were languid, his head wasn't staying quite upright.

"You look like you're in a trance," Elle supplied.

"Maybe I was."

They watched as he walked right out of the front entrance, no one even attempting to stop or question him. Security even opened the door for him. Eddie felt a building sense of horror.

"What did they do to me?"

The breath suddenly escaped from his chest. That yawning chasm opened up again. Tears sprang to his eyes as he fell to his knees, his body desperately aching for something that wasn't there. The ghost of a clawed hand intertwined with his fingers, a comforting weight fell on his shoulders, two swirling opals peered through the blackness.

"Breathe Eddie, breathe!"

But Eddie didn't want to breathe, not if it meant he could continue to stare into that abyss. It was calling to him, it _needed_ him. And he wanted it.

Pain bloomed on his left cheek. Air rushed back into his lungs. The abyss was gone, replaced with Elle's wooden floor. He couldn't help but noticed that it was a lot nicer than his. Cleaner too.

Eddie tried to calm his breathing. What was happening to him? His left hand went up to his still stinging cheek.

"Sorry," Elle said, "Didn't mean to hit you that hard."

She was kneeling in front of him, an apologetic look on her face.

"It's, it's..." Eddie started, but couldn't finish. He closed his eyes, hanging his head. "I don't know what it is," he said quietly. "I know something is missing, more than just memories. I can't describe it." He tried to subtly wipe away the tears.

"It's okay, I get it. I would probably feel the same way too if half my soul had been ripped out."

Eddie looked up with bleary eyes. "What?"

Elle seemed slightly panicked, like she had said something she shouldn't have. She was saved by a knock on the door.

"Pizza time!" she said with strained jollity. She quickly got off the floor to attend to the delivery. Eddie slowly picked himself up, the ache in his chest not quite forgotten.

She shut the door and brought the pizza over to the breakfast bar in the kitchen, busying herself with the contents. "Meat feast right? I got the largest one they had just in case. Ooh, they remembered the dipping sauces." Her deflection technique needed more work. She was studiously not looking at Eddie. "Do you want a plate, or is straight out of the box fine?" She was babbling now. "A glass of water then. I didn't offer you one when you came in and I should have. I'm being a bad host-" She cringed at her words and fell silent, frozen to the spot.

There was something there though. A flicker of recognition over the word 'host'. There was meaning attached to it, more than just the context Elle was using it for.

"What aren't you telling me, Elle?"

"I don't think it's my place to say. I don't- I don't want to freak you out." She still wasn't looking at him.

"Why would I be freaked out?" He moved closer to her. "My head is already messed up, what more could you do?"

"Well," she took a deep breath. "It kind of depends on how you feel about, um... aliens." She said the last word quietly and snatched a quick glance up to see his reaction.

Aliens? He should have snorted with derision, made a snide remark, maybe even got angry with why she was avoiding the question, but he didn't. He looked inside himself and realised that he'd already accepted that aliens existed. When did _that_ happen? As far as he was concerned, aliens were real and he was perfectly comfortable with that fact. More than comfortable actually.

"Venom," he swallowed thickly, "isn't human, is he?"

"No," she said quietly, "they're not."

"Are... you?"

"Mostly. That is to say I- I am human, I just have some not-human extras. Accidentally acquired I should add." She fiddled with the pizza box. She obviously didn't tell many people this.

"Did I know, you know, before?" He was standing right next to her now. He could almost feel how nervous she was.

"If you did you never said anything. I think your Other kept you mostly distracted."

His 'Other'? Did she mean Venom? Was this some sort of non-gender specific term for a partner?

She finally looked him in the eye. "They're your soul mate you know. That's why we need to get them back, among other reasons."

Soul mate? Eddie had a soul mate and it was some sort of alien? Well, that figures. Took a creature from beyond the stars to finally accept him for who he was. And that's what it was - acceptance, warmth, never being lonely again. A ghost of a touch travelled up his spine but this time he didn't run from it. In fact, he yearned for it.

His eyes were wet again. Elle noticed.

"Pizza first yeah? While it's still hot?"

Eddie nodded but didn't reply. For now that was enough.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is everyone enjoying the mystery so far? Anyone got any theories?


	3. Chapter 3

The pizza didn't last long. Eddie ate most of it without really realising just how hungry he was. Elle had two slices then retreated back to her desk. The security footage started speeding up again, trying to catch up with the present.

"What are you looking for?" Eddie asked, swallowing the last of his sixth slice.

"Evidence that V is still around. Should be easy to spot." She didn't look away from the screens. Eddie wondered how she could watch all of them at the same time.

"Is that what your 'extras' make you able to do? All the technology stuff?"

She nodded.

"How did it happen?"

"Oh, you don't want to hear that story."

"I really would actually, if it's okay?" He moved back to the armchair and watched her face. She looked like she was internally debating what to say next. Her eyes drifted away from the screens and she stared into space.

"My mum was an archaeologist, back in the day. She went all over the world digging up god knows what from god knows where. One day she found a box. Actually it was more like one of those 20 sided dice. Have you seen one of those?" She looked at Eddie who nodded. She went back to staring at nothing.

"No one could figure out what it was or what kind of civilisation it came from. The whole dig site was pretty weird I think. Anyway, this was back in the 90's and testing it could only go so far. It remained a mystery. And somehow," she smiled at the memory, "somehow my mother smuggled it back to our house. She wanted so desperately to figure it out instead of letting it just gather dust in some backroom of a museum. It almost became a plaything, something curious to show people, an ice breaker. Then mum got sick and it was put away on a shelf and stayed there. It did just gather dust in the end."

She paused for a good while before taking a deep breath.

"So, fast forward to about six years ago. I'd gone home for Christmas to see the family. It was late, everyone had gone to bed, but me, the night owl, was still up. I saw it up on that shelf and thought I'd take some photos, post it on Twitter or whatever.

Again she paused, this time trying to organise her thoughts.

"I remember I had it in my hand," her left arm extending like she was holding a skull performing Shakespeare. "And just as I started taking pictures, the damn thing opened." She met Eddie's eyes.

He was almost afraid to ask, "What was inside?"

"Dust." Eddie was confused. "Well, it looked like dust. But they were nanites. Microscopic alien machines, _billions_ of them, and they'd never seen a human before."

Eddie swallowed. "What happened?"

"They swarmed me, like they were programmed to do. They took one look at me and one look at my phone and decided that it was in the wrong place. That it was supposed to be part of me, not outside of me."

" _Holy shit_ ," Eddie whispered.

"That's when I blacked out. I don't know when they realised their mistake - the nanites. I mean, I say 'them' but they don't have a consciousness. They didn't know what they did. Maybe somehow my brain told them to stop, I dunno. Maybe they finally looked at my DNA and figured it out, but by then the damage was done. They'd replaced half the cells in my body. If someone switched them off now I'm pretty sure I'd just turn into a pile of goop."

Eddie, frankly, looked rather horrified.

"Waking up the next morning was the worst. I knew something was wrong, that something had happened. The box looked normal, but my phone was gone and I felt different. Have you ever seen that 'galaxy brain' meme? It was like my mind instantly went from nought to sixty and suddenly there was _everything_. The internet hit me light freight train. I learned quickly how to block that out, but not before I'd seen things I really wish I hadn't. The techopathy came at the same time. All I have to do is think about what I want something to do and it does it. Sometimes I don't even have to touch it."

Eddie did his best to process the information. "Sounds intense."

"It can be, but you know, there are a lot of perks too. They keep me healthy. I heal pretty quickly these days. Not like instantaneously, but quick. I even fixed my eyes." She said it with a smile. Eddie gave her a quizzical look. "I used to need pretty thick glasses. Everyone thinks I had laser eye surgery, or wear contacts, but I don't. I programmed my nanites to fix my eyesight. Perfect 20/20."

She paused. "Also, turns out, it's pretty easy to make yourself a millionaire."

Eddie's eyes widened.

"What? It's all just a bunch of ones and zeroes, and as long as you're smart about it and don't go on a stupid spending spree or draw attention to yourself, everyone just believes what the computers tell them." She looked away, a mix of shame and maybe a little bit of guilt. "I don't really use it for me anyway. Well, you know, apart from rent and bills and the essentials."

"What do you use it for?"

She shrugged. "Helping people mostly. A lot of hopeless souls out there on the internet, lots of desperate people. If I can help, I do. It's not always money either. Maybe it's the system working against them, or its information they need. Perhaps an official form needs to be altered just a little bit to make their lives better. It doesn't take much effort on my part."

"Official forms?" Eddie questioned. "Does that mean you can go into banks and government sites and stuff?"

She looked over at him guilty, but a little bit proud. Eddie was impressed. "They don't even know that I've been there. You wouldn't believe the official secrets I've read...." she trails off, leaving the thought hanging.

"Oh," she suddenly said.

"What?"

She was grinning as she turned back to the screens. "V is still alive and kicking."

"How can you tell? Wait, you were watching all of that at the same time as talking to me?"

"It's called multitasking, Eddie."

Okay, now he was seriously impressed.

"Look." She pointed to one of the screens. The footage pinged to a bigger size. It was a corridor shot, but one of the maintenance areas maybe. It looked very clinical. A door opened. A woman in scrubs quickly exited and was doing her best not to throw up. Her hands covered her mouth as she heaved and tried to shut the door behind her. She rushed off out of view.

"That was only a few hours ago." The footage sped up again as Elle searched for more clues.

Eddie wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Did he really want to rescue something that elicited that kind of reaction?

"God, V had still better be ok in there."

"They are," Eddie replied with absolute certainty.

"How do you know?"

"I just- I don't know. I do. They're still there. They're okay."

"Huh," Elle thought. "Must be because of that whole bond thing."

"Bond? We're bonded?"

She smiled. "Pretty intensely, yeah."

A thought struck Eddie and he wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to him before. The tendril he saw coming from his palm, the ghostly touches that would be impossible to recreate, the way he seemed to crave the feeling of movement _under_ his skin.

"What kind of alien is Venom?"

"They're a symbiote, from some planet whose name escapes me."

"Symbiote. Like a parasite-"

" **Not** a parasite," she interrupted.

"But it lives... _they_ live, _inside_ of me." He looked to her for confirmation, but really he already knew.

"You freaking out yet?" She quirked an amused eyebrow.

"I should be, shouldn't I? I mean, that would be the rational thing to do, right?"

She turned back to the screens. "Since whenever has love been rational?"

Love.

Love, darling, sweetheart. The terms of endearment felt like they were right on the tip of his tongue, like he said them so often it was just a normal part of his speech. Did he use them that much with Anne? No, she wasn't much into pet names. He called her Annie and she tolerated it, but darling and sweetheart? He used them for Venom. His Venom. His Other.

A tentacle curled around his waist in a semblance of a hug. The feeling was so strong, so reassuring that he didn't want it to stop. He raised his hand to stroke it, to touch that velvety smooth surface, but his fingers found only the cotton of his shirt. The feeling was gone like every other ghostly touch and his heart ached for missing it.

"Ooh, we have movement."

Eddie was knocked from his train of thought by the commotion going on onscreen. It was the same corridor as before and some poor sap was being man-handled into the room by three other people. His horror was clear but he was thrown inside and the door barred by the others so he couldn't escape.

"Is this happening in real time?" Eddie asked.

"Yup. How do you fancy mounting a rescue mission tonight?"

Right at that moment, Eddie didn't want anything else more in the world.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, Venom finally gets to say something. Just don't get your hopes up quite yet.

Eddie felt a little lightheaded. The windows of the diner had misted over obscuring the outside world. They seemed to swirl like opals.

**We are bored, Eddie.**

"I know, love. It won't be much longer."

**You said that five minutes ago.**

"It's been more than five minutes."

**No it hasn't.**

He smiled, bickering with the deep growl inside his mind. The rumble soaked through his bones setting him at ease. He closed his eyes, just basking in the sensations, his coffee long forgotten before him. He wanted this moment to last, the feeling of being complete, of knowing his Other was with him.

But it couldn't last. The diner was already starting to fade, going soft at the edges.

**Scared, Eddie.**

"I know, love. It won't be much longer."

**Need you.**

"Need you too."

**Don't wake up.**

"Don't want to."

"You know, you really should get a pair of headphones, or a bluetooth, or something if you're going to talk to yourself in public." A woman had sat down opposite them and placed a laptop on the table. She was already blurry. The dream - the memory - was already leaving him.

**Don't want to be alone.**

 

 

Eddie's eyes opened.

They were still sitting in the car around the corner from the therapy centre. The windows had started to fog up slightly. Elle had her laptop open and it seemed to be running some sort of complicated script.

"Welcome back sleeping beauty," she said without looking over.

They were waiting for something. Eddie didn't know what only that they couldn't go in yet. He tried to stretch in the cramped space and recall the details of his dream.

"Did we by any chance meet in a diner?" he asked.

That got her attention."Yeah, we did. How did you remember that?"

"I'm not sure I did. I just dreamed... I dunno. Seemed different to a dream." He scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, it's a good sign. Means she can't control your subconscious too." She smiled but Eddie didn't return it. She poked him in the ribs. "Optimism. Try it one day." His mouth quirked a little upwards but his mood didn't improve much.

"What are we waiting for anyway?" They'd been sitting in the car since the sun went down and couldn't even the see the centre from where they were parked.

"I'm trying to clear us a path."

"How?"

A wicked smile played across her lips. "Well. One of the reasons I decided to help in the first place was because of the centre's security measures. Let's just say the CIA has less stringent digital protocols than they do. It's wildly suspicious. Most times I can hack my way into anywhere remotely, but that place? We had to get inside first."

"So last night wasn't the first time I broke in?"

She shook her head. "It was a fairly quick job. I got us in looking like IT guys, we went to the server room, I put in my back door, we scadoodled."

"If it was so easy, why did I have to be there?"

She shrugged. "Insurance. I hadn't known you long and needed a guarantee I'd get back out again."

Eddie wanted to argue but he could understand her thinking.

"Anyway," she continued, "the point is that those guys in there are super paranoid, but also super lazy. They have electronic locks on a lot of the doors, which is standard procedure you might say. But all these locks are connected to a central database so security can monitor who is going where in the building. And once you're in that database, it's pretty easy to start locking doors remotely." Her wicked grin had returned. "And guess what?"

"What?" replied Eddie, suddenly realising that he would not like to get on Elle's bad side.

"The building is shielded from mobile phone signals. Nothing gets in or out. Right now, there are dozens of people locked away in rooms with no way out." She was nearly giggling. "Fuck the lot of them anyway. They messed with you so they deserve it."

She returned to looking at her laptop. "Nearly done."

Eddie let out a long breath. It was starting to sink in just how powerful Elle actually was. She could probably topple countries if she wanted to, but instead here she was, sitting in a rental car trying to reunite Eddie with the love of his life. He shook his head.

"How do you know so much about Venom?"

"You told me."

"But, wasn't I trying to keep it secret?"

"Trying and failing." She looked at him. "You talked to yourself, a lot. I mean, don't worry, V spoke back, but only you could hear them."

"Which is why you suggested getting a bluetooth."

"Shit, you really did remember something. Wow. But yeah, I also did my research."

"You researched me?"

"Had to be safe. It wasn't hard to connect you with the crazy black cryptid that's been stalking around the city, leaving headless bodies. But only easy for me. You've done quite well to cover to your own tracks." Her laptop dinged.

Eddie swallowed. "Um, headless bodies?"

She was opening the door. "Time to rock and roll."

Elle left the laptop in the car, but had her phone in hand. "I've already set the cameras inside to loop so no one will know that we're there. Street cams can't see us either. I'm probably being over cautious but whatever. We'll go round the back to the delivery entrance." She was striding towards the end of the block and paused at the corner.

"Yeah, yeah, that's all great, but can we go back to the part about headless bodies again?"

Eddie looked around the corner towards the Healing Hearts therapy centre and froze. The building was nothing special. One of those fairly ugly modern things that was all angles and brushed metal. It was pretty large though and the name shone out from above the door in large illuminated letters.

The problem was that Eddie was literally frozen. He couldn't move. Panic shot through his body. What the hell was going on!?

Elle took a few distracted steps forward before she realised that Eddie wasn't behind her. She spun on her heel. "Eddie?"

He couldn't even talk. All he could do was move his eyes which were starting to get frantic with fear. She waved her hand in front of his face and somehow made the connection to the building. She suddenly shoved him hard back around the corner.

Eddie's body instantly unlocked and he stumbled before getting his balance.

"What the fuck was that!?"

"I don't know. Some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion?" Elle then froze herself. "Wait, is it that simple? All this time and it was just hypnosis?" She was more talking to herself rather than Eddie.

"You've lost me."

"You never told me how she did it. What her methods were. And I should have asked more, but you said you'd be fine. That they didn't work on you because you had two minds. But, you were wrong." She ended glumly.

"Okay, but what does this mean? I can't even look at that building. God knows what else she's put in my head. I might just one day decide to walk out into traffic, or I'll see something that makes me go postal. You said there were 26 other victims out there. What if I end up like them? Just some comatose vegetable spending the rest of my days with a tube up my dick so I don't piss the bed!"

He was breathing hard, his panic twisting his stomach to knots. He had no idea how much his brain had been messed with. Clearly it wasn't just his memories that were an issue. What if he wasn't safe to be around anymore? What if he ended up hurting someone, someone close to him?

A tendril inched up his neck and ran through his hair. It was joined by two others in a semblance of a head massage. Eddie closed his eyes and let out his tension in one long sigh. By the time he finished breathing out, the feeling was gone. He missed it instantly, but Elle was smiling.

"Why are you smiling? Were you not just listening to what I said? Do you not understand the magnitude-"

"It can be undone." She was still smiling.

"What?"

"Hypnosis. It can be undone. If that's all it is, we can undo it. We can put everything right again."

"I can't even get in the building."

She paused, clearly thinking.

"So, we'll just have to get creative instead."

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Apparently, 'getting creative' meant blindfolding Eddie with his own jacket and walking him backwards across the street towards the centre. He dreaded to think what kind of looks they were getting, but seeing as no one could actually see his face to recognise him, he brushed the worry off. He was more concerned about falling over, but Ella did a surprisingly good job of guiding him.

He heard the rumble of a steel shutter as it was lifted and felt the gentle press of Ella's hands on his head and shoulders as she ducked him under it. The shutter was rolled down behind him.

"Okay," she took hold of both of Eddie's hands so he could at least know where she was. "I'm going to take the blindfold off now. Hopefully there won't be any more surprises now that we're actually inside, but you have to let me know if you don't feel right. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

She took the jacket off of Eddie's head and gave him a moment for his eyesight to adjust. The delivery entrance was pretty standard, but the imposing electronic lock on the door to the main building wasn't.

"You weren't kidding about the security." He mused.

"Oh that's nothing. Child's play. We need to be more aware of the people I didn't manage to lock away. Fairly certain by now someone's noticed that things aren't quite right, so we'll have to be quick. I still have the building plans in my head so just stay close, ok?"

Eddie nodded. Elle had barely touched the lock before the door clicked open. She quickly guided him through back corridors and down two flights of stairs, all without meeting anyone. When they reached the basement they passed a room where someone was banging on the door, but they both ignored it and quickly scuttled past.

Then they turned a corner and both stopped dead in their tracks.

It was the same one from the security feed except all the furniture that had been barricading the door had been viciously ripped to shreds. The overhead light flickered and deep gouges marked the walls. Only part of the door was still hanging to the hinge.

"Holy fuck," Elle whispered.

Eddie edged closer to the room. There was some sort of viscera on the linoleum floor but he didn't want to try and figure out what. Inside the storage room was even worse. Eddie gagged a bit at the sight. Three, maybe four bodies all contorted and twisted in unnatural ways, their insides not entirely inside anymore. One of them was missing a head.

Elle approached. "No! No, don't look. It's-" the pizza was threatening to make a return. "It's nasty."

"I know, Eddie. You don't need to protect me. I've seen plenty worse on the dark web." She peeked inside the room. "But yeah, that is pretty nasty."

Eddie turned his back to it. "This was all Venom's doing?"

"You can't blame a person for doing what they need to to survive."

"But one of them is missing a head!"

"You keep coming back to that. Why is it such a big deal all of a sudden?"

Eddie wanted to explain that it had always been a big deal, but was acutely aware that they were low on time.

"Look, just, where are they now?"

Elle looked back along the corridor. The destructive trail led to nowhere in either direction.

"Um." Her eyes fell on the security camera she had hacked into earlier. "Give me a boost."

She picked her way past the broken furniture and stood against the wall. Eddie quickly got the idea and followed. The lift was awkward but it got Elle high enough to touch the camera. Her eyes closed as she started searching.

Eddie huffed out a breath. "Can you hurry this up, please?"

"I'm sorry if my looking through 126 cameras isn't going quickly enough for you. Would you like to try?"

Eddie gave a strained reply. His eyes lingered on the destruction in front of him. Did he really want to rescue something that could do that much damage? That caused those people to die in horrible ways? Elle said it was survival, and that inferred extenuating circumstances. If he willingly shared his body with this creature, it can't be an everyday occurrence.

A soothing motion ran down his arms. No. If the ghostly touches he had been experiencing were any indication, all Venom had for him was tenderness. God, he hoped so anyway. He started to feel a tightening sensation in his chest, but wasn't sure if this was because of Venom or from holding up Elle at an awkward angle.

"Got them!" She said at last. "They're-"

"Upstairs." He put her down.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"I, I-..." He looked confused. "I just do. Come on."

He took Elle's hand and pulled her along the corridor. It felt like a string had been tied to his chest and was tugging him in the right direction. Elle didn't question him, just helped to open any doors and offer directions when they couldn't go exactly in the way Eddie felt was needed.

They quickly found themselves in the main part of the building. It was decorated and laid out in exactly the way you would expect some high-end spa to be. All pastel colours, frosted glass and inspirational wall art. The logo was everywhere and Eddie was worried he might hit another mental snag, but the pull on his chest was just too strong for him to pay anything else any attention.

They did, however, run into a security guard. He was trying his best to bust through a door and free the people inside, but he wasn't making much headway.

They quickly backtracked out of sight.

"I thought you said the path was clear!?" Eddie hissed.

"It was! To downstairs anyway." She hissed back. "I'm not omniscient."

"How can we get around?"

"We can't. Just- one moment." She closed her eyes, reached out with her right hand and motioned like she was wrapping something around her fingers. She brought her left hand to her mouth like she was holding something square.

Two bursts of static came from the walkie talkie on the security guard's belt along with a small bleeping alert tone.

Eddie watched as the guard picked it up. "Go for Mike," he said.

"IT have arrived in the lobby," came the distorted reply. Eddie's eyes flicked back to Elle. Her lips were moving. "They need your badge for something."

"Say again?" Mike asked.

Elle huffed. "You are needed in the lobby." The speech was slightly clearer now, but still just distorted just enough so it was hard to tell who was speaking.

"Fine, fine. I'm on my way. Check your frequency though would ya Sue? You sound awful. Over."

Eddie ducked back out of sight as Mike went past. He looked to Elle who gave him a cheeky wink. The girl most definitely had skills.

It wasn't far from there that they came upon a familiar sight; the door to Carolyn's office. It was slightly ajar and Eddie cautiously approached.

"Careful," Elle whispered. "She might have put more booby traps in your head."

Eddie brushed her off with a wave of his hand. He felt like he was so close now. The string in his chest was practically thrumming. He took hold of the door handle, yanked it open and found-

-an empty office. To the left was a reclining couch, to the right, a desk and chair. Relaxing murals covered the walls along with some large, oddly shaped wooden art. Not a single certificate or doctorate to be seen.

Eddie let out a frustrated yell. He was so close. _They_ were so close.

"They're here, I _know_ they're here!"

"I know. I believe you."

"There has to be something we've missed, something that's-..." He trailed off. He was getting a sense of de ja vu again, but this time, instead of running from it, he embraced it.

He sat down on the couch and started to concentrate.

"Eddie? What are you doing?" Elle asked, a note of concern in her voice.

"Just don't slap me, okay? Whatever happens, don't stop me."

"I don't like where this is going."

"You don't have to."

Eddie latched back onto that feeling of familiarity and _pulled_. The noise and colour threatened to overwhelm again, but he wasn't going to be distracted. He focused all his might into remembering this office, remembering what this room had done to him. A face loomed towards him. A woman, in her late fifties, with blonde hair piled on top of her head and dark rimmed glasses. She smiled wickedly, but her face was torn in two by a crack of light. A voice called out to him.

**_Eddie_**....

"Eddie. Eddie!" Elle's voice rang in his ears. "Eddie, come on!"

His chest ached. Was she performing CPR?

Eddie suddenly took in a deep breath and started coughing. He was on the floor again. Elle looked incredibly relived.

"Oh thank fuck. Don't do that again!" She punched him on the arm for good measure.

"Wha- what happened?" Eddie spluttered.

"You stopped breathing you moron. I hope it was worth it."

He took more deep breaths trying to get his head to clear. He extended an arm and Elle helped him up.

"Please tell me you got something out of that," she moaned.

Eddie held up a finger to silence her. He had seen something, something useful. He slowly turned around looking at all corners of the room. He approached the wooden wall art and, with his finger still extended, gently pressed on the corner of it.

There was a gentle click and part of the wall inched forward. It was a god-damned secret door!

"Well this definitely wasn't on the blueprints," Elle whispered.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The door opened onto a spiral staircase. The walls were unfinished concrete, a bare bulb hung overhead. This definitely wasn't up to code. From somewhere deep below there was a voice on repeat, but what it said was unintelligible. Eddie felt drawn towards it.

They both descended the stairs, their shadows cast by the overhead light making it tricky to see the steps. It felt they were travelling a long way down. At one point Elle got out her phone to use it as a flashlight. Eventually there was a glimmer from another light source. It came from an open doorway.

Eddie entered into a small auditorium. It had banked seats, maybe six rows of ten. A figure sat in the front row watching the screen. The repeated voice was louder now and it compelled Eddie to do the same. The screen danced with swirling coloured shapes. There must've been a sequence to it, the way one shape changed into another, but Eddie couldn't quite catch it.

"Wow, that's trippy," Elle commented.

Eddie felt he should say something back, like that was what he was supposed to do, but he couldn't form the words. Something in the way he was standing must have alerted Elle.

"Eddie? Eddie!"

She spun him round to face her. Concern crossed her face as she put two and two together. She made a hand motion towards the hole where the projection was emitting from.

"Damn, it's analogue. Just- just stay there. **Don't** look at the screen." But that was all Eddie wanted to do. As soon as she stepped back, Eddie found his eyes drifting towards it. He couldn't help it.

Elle spotted another spiral staircase on the other side of the auditorium and guessed that must be the access to the projector room. Maybe if she shut it all down she could break the spell.

Eddie continued his slow turn back to the screen. For a moment his eyes lingered on the form sitting in the front row. They had black hair, or was it a black scarf? It looked like it was moving, or was that just the shifting light?

Eddie couldn't help watching the shapes. It reminded him of the colours that caused the confusion in his mind. Was it the same design? Dimly he was aware of a door being shut. Someone was banging against it. He should help them but his body didn't feel like moving. It didn't feel like doing anything except staying right where it was.

High heels clanked on a metal staircase. Someone new was on the other side of the room.

"Well, Eddie Brock. I'm surprised to see you back so soon, but I guess you had help from your meddling friend up there." The voice was female, an older woman. It was smooth and inviting, but something in the back of Eddie's head was telling him he was in danger.

She came into view. Unsurprisingly she had thick rimmed glasses and blonde hair piled high into some sort of bun. Her lipstick was bright red and very unbecoming. But she radiated power and confidence. She was a woman who knew what she could do and that she was holding all the cards. This was Carolyn Archer.

"Tell me, Eddie. How did you get into the building?" There was a slight southern drawl to her speech, the kind that a person had worked hard to get rid of, but couldn't entirely eliminate.

He tried to answer but his mouth would only open and close.

"Speak Eddie," she commanded sweetly.

"Blindfold," was all he was able to get out. He wanted to say more, wanted to spit curses into her face, but all he could do was a half-hearted glare, and even then it probably came out looking more sleepy than menacing.

She huffed out a sigh. "Of course, how simple."

There was the sound of smashing glass. Elle's voice rang out from the projection booth.

"Don't listen to her Eddie! Don't listen to a word she says!"

His eyes started to drift towards her voice, but Carolyn quickly recaptured his gaze, her long painted nails digging into his chin.

"No Eddie, don't listen to _her_." And suddenly Elle's voice was silenced. "You only obey me know, understand?"

Eddie slowly nodded his head and Carolyn released her grip.

The images on the screen started to stutter and flicker. Moments later, the screen went blank, the audio stopped too.

"Commendable effort," Carolyn called out, "but you're too late my dear. Once I have a person's mind, they are mine." She said the last part with a wicked grin. And it was true. The film might have stopped but Eddie was still stuck.

"Now, Eddie darling," she continued, "we can't have you coming back here again can we? I guess I'll have to think of something a little more permanent, and make sure that friend of yours doesn't interfere again. What to do, what to do?"

As Carolyn plotted, she failed to notice that the figure in the front row had stood up. They were, in fact, coming towards her. Eddie stared at them over her shoulder.

It might've been a man once. His form was twisted, his face contorted into a gormless expression -  at least, half of it was. The other half was covered in a moving black mass that dripped down his shoulders and across his torso.

But Eddie knew that inky blackness, knew that unfocused opal streak was an eye. His heart sang with hope but all he could do was stare. Carolyn noticed and spun round to face the figure.

"Ah yes, the creature you brought along with you. I will say, they have been quite tricky, and it looks like we'll need to find a new person for it soon, but what a fascinating specimen. Such a simple mind. Easily influenced. I think that it took to the programme quicker than you did. And once we figured out its needs, well, I think that it will be staying with me for a _very_ long time."

'Creature'? 'Specimen'? 'Simple mind'!? Eddie raged at her words. His body shook and his fists clenched, but still he couldn't move. It was true that his awareness of Venom was limited, but these insults hurt him right at his core. No one got to speak about Venom that way. No one.

"Oh Eddie, have I said something to upset you dear?" She wasn't in the least bit concerned. She was enjoying mocking him. "Why, you should calm down before you give yourself an aneurysm. Or maybe that would better? Would definitely stop you snooping around here." She laughed to herself.

**Ed**... **die**?

Carolyn turned. "What did you say?"

**Ed-die.**

"Oh go sit back in your seat and shut up."

**My... _Eddie_.**

The man was reaching out an oil covered arm and Eddie wanted so desperately to reach back. Every cell in his body was screaming at him, the strain bringing tears to his eyes.

"Oh no you don't." She pushed Eddie further away. "I told you to go and sit back down."

**No.**

"Don't you disobey me. I am your master. You will do as I command."

The man wavered. The uncovered half of his face slowly blinked an eye. Somehow, he was still alive, and clearly the conditioning was working more on him than it was Venom.

All Eddie needed was a distraction. He was sure that if Carolyn wasn't around, they would be reunited in a heartbeat. Luckily, Elle was still on his side.

There was a vague crash and a heavy thunk from the direction of the projector room.

"Whatever you're doing up there, stop it!" Carolyn commanded. If there was a reply, Eddie didn't get to hear it. Instead, something bright and flaming was thrown from the booth window into the seats below. Fire spread instantly between several rows.

Carolyn screamed and ran for the nearest fire extinguisher. It was all Eddie needed.

In a show of will that was not his own, the man lunged towards Eddie, his outstretched hand making contact with Eddie's chest. And suddenly, he was home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing fanfic so please be kind to this old gal discovering a fandom she literally can't get enough of. God, I love these two so much!


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